the good...

alright ladies (and men i suppose, if you are there), i promised these were coming, so here they are in all their glory!


oh, in case you didn't know, this is going to be the first in my "the good, the bad and the ugly"* wedding dress posts.


the first weekend in feburary, my maid of honor was able to come down for a weekend and she, my mom, kyle's mom, my mom's friend cindy and my other friend (and coordinator) julie all trekked out to THREE wedding dress shops in wichita.  then about 2 weeks after that, i dragged one of my bridesmaids, kara, and my mom back to one of the shops to try to narrow it down.  then, i got frustrated.  i didn't really LOVE anything, but i really LIKED a lot of them.  so i ignored the fact that i needed a dress for a while....and then i had my google calendar (do you guys use google calendar?  love that thing...) anyways, it popped up that i needed to order my wedding dress that month.  i was told by nearly every single shop i went to that i needed to order it by 6 months to my wedding date, which is april 25th, in order to get all the alterations and such done.  kara mentioned a friend of hers that got their dress at this little shop in mcpherson (about an hour from wichita) and they loved their experience there!  so, i did what any good bride does and stalked their website for about two days.  :)  then, after i decided i was in love with the shop (they sell two of my favorite designers...) i told my mom and kyle's mom that we needed to go that following weekend.  and off we went!  i'll tell you now that i bought my dress that day.  i love it, and even though i love a bunch of other dresses that i see every day online, on blogs, in shop windows and stalking other dress shops websites, i still love my dress.  it's so me, it's not even funny.


so, onto "the good" dresses i found in my search!

i fell in love with this dress the second i saw it on accent bridal's facebook page, it was dotted swiss lace with a great accent sash that would minimize my waist.  BUUUTTT, when i tried it on, it was just way too poofy.  and, it was about 12 sizes too big and i was having trouble imagining what it should look like.

i don't know what it is about wedding dresses, but they make me put my hands on my hips.  i think it's the bare arms issue....anyway, this was the second dress i tried on during my first trip.  it was soooo soft and the lace and beading were so pretty!  i really liked the modified sweetheart neckline and that the sample dress fit me and that it had a corset back.  my problem?  it just didn't really do much for me other than i knew it looked good on me.  i didn't feel "wedding-y" but more that i was playing dress up with someone else's pretty dress.

this dress was actually brought to me by the owner of this shop and she told me that "this will be your wedding dress, i just know it."  well, she was close!  this is my second favorite dress from that day.  i honestly think that if i hadn't ordered the dress i did, i would have bought this one.  it was very flattering, even with how it was fitted around my hips (more on that under the "bad" and "ugly" posts...)  the thing that i didn't like and you can see in the second picture is the neckline.  i didn't like the straight across, and the lady told me there was no way to make it look right as a sweetheart.  one thing i've learned is that large chested women should wear dresses that flatter their chest, or deal with looking ten pounds heavier than they really do.

honestly, there are a ton more dresses that i tried on that i really, really, really liked.  but these were my top three that didn't make the cut.

stay tuned for even more to come!

* i'm not saying these dresses are bad, or ugly for that matter.  but, they either looked bad or ugly on ME!  i'm sure they are in fact gorgeous on some people, just not girls that are shaped like muah.  :)